


This Burden

by suitesamba



Series: The "This" Series [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, h/c, potential triggers for pregnancy related theme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:04:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1733807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John hates to wait, but the waiting ends early.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Burden

**Author's Note:**

> Part 11 (of 12) of the "This" Series, in which Sherlock and John do not get interrupted by Mrs. Hudson and the client during Stag Night. A fix-it series featuring different resolutions to Sherlock BBC canonical events.

This Burden

The paternity test costs nearly a thousand pounds, and John pays without protest, and willingly submits to the blood draw. 

There is nothing left to do but wait.

Two weeks isn’t such a long while, though it feels like half a lifetime, and John sleeps fitfully, and wakes Sherlock time and again with his restless legs and quiet sighs. One night, Sherlock rolls out of bed, yawning sleepily, and pads out of the room to fetch his violin.

He plays for John, sleepy lullabies, love songs without lyrics, a simple waltz, the _Blue Danube._ John drifts to sleep at last, and Sherlock crawls back in bed, and they are wrapped in each other’s arms when John’s mobile wakes them both at five o’clock. 

It is Mary, at the hospital.

She’s sobbing, and Sherlock is hastily tossing clothing John’s way, getting dressed himself as John tries to make out words and offer reassurances and his face – Sherlock isn’t sure what to make of his face.

She’s lost the baby, and Sherlock waits in the corridor and stares vacantly at the ceiling tiles while John is ushered in.

He feels the most overpowering sense of relief behind the stoic face he keeps. He doesn’t deny it to himself, nor does he feel ashamed. He doesn’t pretend it is all for the best because Mary would make an unfit mother with her killer instincts and hidden past. He is relieved for selfish reasons, and he acknowledges them freely, but quietly, internally. 

John stays with Mary a long time. An hour. Another. 

He’s sitting on a bench outside when at last John comes out. Sherlock is smoking and he takes a final drag on the cigarette before snuffing it out.John doesn’t comment on the cigarette, nor on the smell of smoke on Sherlock’s collar when he burrows against him.

“She’s devastated,” he says when Sherlock doesn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Sherlock tries. His voice catches.

“No – no you’re not,” John says. “But that’s alright. You don’t have to be sorry.”

Sherlock’s arm tightens around John’s waist. 

“You didn’t want her to lose the baby,” John says. He squeezes Sherlock’s hand, then stands and blinks against the feeble morning sun. “You just didn’t want it to be mine.” 

And Sherlock knows he is speaking for himself, under the guise of Sherlock’s name, and Sherlock’s fine with this. 

As they sit together in the back of the cab in the Friday morning London traffic, John is unusually quiet. Sherlock wonders if he, too, feels the weight of burden lifted, sees a straighter, clearer path before them.

Or if, perhaps, he is mourning the might have beens, pressing futilely against the door to a realm forever and again locked to him.

And when the paternity test results arrive by old-fashioned post days later, John burns them, unopened. 

And later that evening, Mary sends Sherlock a one-word text.

_\- Relieved? -_

And in all its ambiguity, it could mean nothing, or everything, or anything – anything at all.


End file.
